Hurray!

For the past one week, me and my Appa were laboring to submit a Passport renewal application for him using the new website called Passport Seva Portal. He could not successfully get past the login screen at his end in India, so he officially appointed me his travel agent in US. After getting through the creation of application and uploading the documents, we were shocked to note that the Normal appointment at the passport office is too far away for our needs. We needed to get an express appointment to proceed with our plans. Looks like these appointments open up a 8AM IST and they get filled up in no time and you had to wait the next day or another.

Since then my job was to book a Tatkal (meaning instantaneous) appointment - which was not an easy task. Every time I check for the availability of the Tatkal, all I got was "All Tatkal appointments have been booked, please try again later or another day". I kept trying at different times with despair.

Yesterday night, I tried at exact 8AM IST and I could not believe my eyes. I FINALLY saw the tatkal slots listed. My hands were literally shaking because I KNEW these will get filled up in no time. As I picked a slot and clicked "Book Appointment" keeping my fingers crossed, I saw the words "The slot you selected has been taken by another person. Please try again later". My heart sank! All the efforts went futile, I thought.

I knew LATER I may not even get this far. I could see that all the open slots that I had seen a minute earlier for the location I selected within Bangalore were GONE. I just tried another location in Bangalore and voila, I saw just ONE slot. I pounced on it and prayed to all Gods. My dad was doing the same thing from the one end - except that he can't even get as far as I can within the website. And I got the appointment!

I was never THIS happy in the recent past. Phew..! I called Appa to narrate this success story and now we can go ahead with the plans. Interesting experience - frustrating for the whole time but since I finally succeeded - now I have a smile! Little joys of life! Sense of satisfaction and accomplishment - isn't that all we want to take away from any experience!

That One Long Minute

The test was 4 hours long. The past two weeks have been so hectic and strenuous with preparing for the PMP certification exam. I had a red jute bag full of PMP books and I would set out to either Barnes and Nobles or the Penn State Great Valley campus. I had 'my' sofas in both the places. My little corners of study where I could open a book and forget about the rest of the world. I had put in my best with full support from all at home.

But the questions are so tricky with two answers that are really close. Every answer I clicked, I was trusting my instinct based on what I studied. After one pass through all questions and a second pass through the 'Mark for Review' ones, my thoughts centered around the what the outcome is going to be. I tried to shake those thoughts away telling myself the outcome is going to be based on what I do NOW. As there was only 1 minute, I thought - I have done all I could and I would really be broken if I don't make it! I prayed to God because that is all that I could do now. My heart was thumping so hard I could hear it distinctly as if it were on the table, next to the keyboard.

A survey screen about the testing center followed. I clicked through choices like 'Excellent' and 'Good' for the survey. The survey ended and I waited for the screen to refresh with the result of the exam.

The white blank screen refreshed and I could read the word 'Congratulations, you have passed the PMP examination'. My joy knew no bounds. It was the moment for which I worked hard. But I realize that the result could very easily have been the other way - had some questions been more tough, had I clicked a different choice for some answers. As I gathered the print out of the 'success' screen, I was truly happy. After the day I got laid off, this is the first day of achievement.

I called B and told him the result. He was thrilled. He told Nikhil who was in the car. And Nikhil said "Look, Amma, I told you anything can be DONE on my birthday". Yes, he turned 8 on the same day. The evening was spent in Olive Garden with family where we got the waiters sing a surprise birthday song for him and he truly was surprised and shy!